Background: Biofuels may play a significant role in regard to carbon emission reduction in the transportation sector. Therefore, a thermochemical process for biomass conversion into synthetic chemicals and fuels is being developed at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) by producing process energy to achieve a desirable high carbon dioxide reduction potential. Methods: In the bioliq proc...

Thermochemical biomass conversion systems have the potential to produce heat, power, fuels and other products from forest biomass at distributed scales that meet the needs of some forest industry facilities. However, many of these systems have not been deployed in this sector and the products they produce from forest biomass have not been adequately described or characterized with regards to ch...

In order to exchange the wood biomass energy for electric power with small capacity and high efficiency, it is most effective use a reciprocating engine operated gasifier. On other hand, such small-capacity system often installed in urban areas. Therefore, strict emission regulation should be observed. Normally, as low heating value (LHV) of bio-syngas small, stoichiometric mixture achieve maxi...

Black liquor is the residue from the kraft paper pulp process and consists, mainly, of water, lignin, organic residues from cellulose and hemicelluloses and inorganic matter (mostly sodium, potassium and sulfur). Before any combustion or gasification, the dry content of the black liquor is increased, typically from 14-18% to 75-80%, to permit autogenous combustion and high conversion efficiency...

Biomass gasification has yet to obtain industrial acceptance. The high residual tar concentrations in syngas prevent any ambitious utilization. In this paper a novel gas purification technology based on catalytic hydrocracking is introduced, whereby most of the tarry components can be converted and removed. Pilot scale experiments were carried out with an updraft gasifier. The hydrocracking cat...

This work presents a general mathematical model of a fixed bed gasifier, where both the transport resistances and the chemical kinetics are important at the reactor and the particle scale. Pyrolysis and gasification of the solid fuel (coal, plastics, biomasses or wastes) is only the first step of the whole process. Successive gas phase reactions of the released species are described with a deta...

Solar dried sewage sludge (SS) conversion by pyrolysis and gasification processes has been performed, separately, using two laboratory-scale reactors, a fixed-bed pyrolyzer and a downdraft gasifier, to produce mainly hydrogen-rich syngas. Prior to SS conversion, solar drying has been conducted in order to reduce moisture content (up to 10%). SS characterization reveals that these biosolids coul...

In the present work, the air-steam biomass gasification model with tar has been developed based on the equilibrium constants. The simulation results based on two different models (with and without tar) have been validated by the experimental data. The model with tar can well predict the tar content in gasification; meanwhile, the predicted gas yield (GY), based on the model with tar, is much cl...